Europe

In the summer of 2009 we went on one of our largest trips yet, encompassing half of Europe. Starting from Riga, Latvia on May 27th, with our own car packed full of camping supplies, we headed south for sunny Italy, stopping by in Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein. After reaching the tip of continental Italy, we took the ferry to Sicily, from there to Sardinia, Corsica and back to mainland Europe in Nice. After traveling through Southern France, we smuggled alcohol across the borders of Andorra, dashed across northern Spain, and spent large amounts of time in Portugal, southern Spain and Gibraltar, crossing the ferry to Morocco. From there on its all northwards driving through Spain, France, Benelux and Germany, while dashing through Denmark and Sweden, stopping by in Aland Islands, and back to Latvia.

I left out places like Switzerland and close lying areas, because I want to go on a separate hiking tour there, and I left out areas close to home, such as Poland, most of Germany, Denmark, Sweden. Its not that they are not beautiful countries, its just that they are so close and so similar, when there I don't feel like I've traveled anywhere. Other large areas of Europe (East, Balkans, North, UK & Irlenad) had to be left out because the trip was already too long.

Europe is expensive, and this trip took us to some of the most expensive places of all. The total cost came out at around $100 per day per person. When in the countryside, we usually stayed in a tent, but in large cities we splurged on hotels. When my brother visited me in Portugal and Spain, we stayed in hotels for 3 weeks straight, had we left that part out, the average would have been far less. Time of the year is important - June in Italy was much cheaper than August in France, but May in Austria was too cold for comfortable camping. One thing we realized very quickly is that you can't eat out all the time, its just too expensive. We ended up cooking in campsites whenever we stayed there.

Another high cost item is entrance fees, in some countries you will pay them even for entering churches. The number of places you can visit and spend your money is staggering - in USA, there are 2500 national historic landmarks; in Italy alone, they number 100,000. In some days you can visit 3 or 4 UNESCO world heritage sites in a single day. If each one boasts a 9.50 euro entrance fee, for two people at the current exchange rate that comes out at $110. Add to that extortionate parking fees and gasoline at $8 a gallon (or if you're using public transport, transport tickets that cost more than parking and gas, and gigantic amounts of wasted time) and you've spent $150 in a single day without any accommodation or food to speak of.

Traveling on a long trip like this without a car is very inconvenient. For starters, you can cut the number of places you can visit and things you can do in half, because public transport isn't as fast and doesn't always go where and when you want it to go. Secondly, some of the best bits of a trip like this are small stops in beautiful little towns scattered across the European countryside, I just can't fathom how you can visit these places in any kind of a reasonable timescale without a car. Thirdly, you can put all your stuff in a car and leave it there, not having to carry all your bags on every bus and train is reason enough to drive.

Camping in Europe is nice in most mountainous regions, but everywhere else you're in campground from hell. The worst are coastal campgrounds, which are like little caravan towns full of loud vacationers with their kids. People who frequent these campgrounds have hardly seen a tent in their lives. Italy, especially south of Rome, is the most offending country, but that's only because campgrounds in Spain and Portugal are so hard to come by, we hardly managed to experience them. In high season, camping for two with a car can cost as much as $40 a night (but more around the $25-$30 range). In most places there is very little privacy, most campgrounds are just a large field with tents/caravans stacked next to each other so you can safely hear several people snore during the night. Showers often cost extra. That being said, if you go without a tent, you are going to be paying monumental amounts of money for hotels and you'll miss a lot of great camping.